Hamster Tragedy
first in a collection
by Boggle Faye
I don't own GABM... although I must admit I've had my moments where I've longed to own Milkshakes the cat. And the quote comes from "Billy and Mandy vs. the Martians." Anyway, this is my first fic for this fandom so try not to bash me too much. And this is the first in a series of drabbles. Yeah. They're all to be set fifteen years in the future, based on a quote/concept from an episode of the show, and slightly in parody of classic GABM future fics. 'Cause I'm a jerk XP Well, enjoy.
X
"Sometimes our best friends are people we really don't like."
Great. So he was quoting Billy now (funny- he'd said that fifteen years ago and yet it was exactly the kind of thing he would say now). But Billy was right... unfortunately.
He didn't even know which he hated more- that the quote was so true at all, or that it had come from Billy and yet he still repeated it to himself every day. But either way, it seemed to help every morning at exactly ten-thirty... he'd once been late, and it wasn't an experience he liked to recount... when he found himself in the far corner of the kitchen pouring pebbles into a dish for the still-not-dead Mr. Snuggles.
It was truly an insult that Mandy still made him feed the damned hamster (it was a hamster wasn't it? It was getting harder and harder to tell)... rather than just killing it, to be frank. He didn't even know who to feel sorry for anymore- him or the forsaken hamster? Some days it was like he had betrayed the poor creature.
Mr. Snuggles really ought to have died fifteen years ago. Earlier, even. It was odd that now, fifteen years later- in a reality wherein he was still the maid and caretaker to Billy and fearfully groveling slave to Mandy- he managed to feel sorry for the hamster. But Grim imagined it sucked to be Mr. Snuggles a fair amount too.
But worse than the pitying was, of course, the reminiscing. Because of course he was so very tortured. When he put it that way, it sounded lame and conceited... but in his condition, quite honestly it seemed, human or not, alien for him not to be self pitying.
He really was being all too vague. Yes, it really was that hard to admit that he hated feeding the hamster because of Billy and Mandy (Mr. Snuggles hadn't done anything wrong!). The cartoon skeleton really hated himself sometimes.
However, he'd finally come to terms with the realization that it sucked to be him enough to get away with it. But more about this hamster.
It served as a reminder. It was exactly the essence of his less-than-newfound "job"- some frivolous task Mandy had ordered him to do, that was doing more harm than help (the poor hamster was miserable!) and was really solely to humiliate him. Well no, that was a lie. It wasn't just about that. Grim still cringed to think of attempting to explain to Billy that the hamster had finally kicked the bucket ("you got him curtains?!").
Best friends. It was laughable. Funny, fifteen years hadn't really changed anything.
Thank God (although that was entirely against his nature ever since he and the Almighty got into a century-long fight about mashed potatoes way back in the middle ages), it was over. He watched Snuggles cough and wheeze with something resembling pity and made his way back to the living room sofa. As shallow and strange as it might sound, Billy's wise words (step back and enjoy the irony) managed to make some ends meet every morning at ten-thirty. One disgusting, snot-covered shoelace down... who knows how many to go.